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What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them?
What have you been playing lately? Discussion about video games and board games are both welcome. Please don't just make a list of titles, give some thoughts about the game(s) as well.
I've had a weird six weeks or so, I've been bouncing around a lot. The only game I finished all the way through was Prey but events came up that took all my mental energy so I don't have an in-depth review of it like I usually would. It was a great distraction though given its nature.
Prey (2017): Probably my favourite "immersive sim" in a long, long time. It really feels like System Shock 3 in many ways and does the whole thing better than any of the BioShock games and even Arkane's other work. Arkane's work is strangely polarizing so YMMV. I can't speak to it as I don't really understand what it is about their games that put off so many people but that's a blind spot of my own, and sometimes I feel it myself but can't figure out or articulate why. But Prey does feel like their most complete and comprehensive game.
What struck me most about Prey is that there really is a ton of ways to approach every situation. You're never locked into just one or two ways. Your own ingenuity and lateral thinking will get you further than any trite upgrade mechanic here. Combined with a mind-bending story, great art style, and really cool enemy designs, it's a winner for sure.
Doom Eternal: Not fully through it but I'm surprised how much it's not like DOOM 2016. This is not a direct sequel, mechanically, even if it is narratively. The enemies work a bit differently, the weapons are different, the entire approach to combat and resources is completely different. I'm starting to realize that DOOM, as a series, is basically variations on a theme. Except for Doom 2, not one of the games in the series has been a full-on sequel to the previous game in a traditional sense. I can understand why people who wanted more DOOM 2016 are turned off of this game but also why people who don't like DOOM 2016 like this one more. Also this game is far, far more difficult than the last game as you have to balance out so many more things than simply which demon is weak enough for a Glory Kill. Resource management is now top of mind. If you're looking for a hardcore arcade FPS at all, give this one a shot, even if you weren't quite into the last DOOM. Just don't expect it to be like DOOM 2016.
Hades: I don't like roguelikes much but this one is super addictive. Supergiant really are experts at top-down brawler games and this continues that tradition. I find the narrative approach in this one especially interesting as well. I'm actually excited when I die and have to start from scratch because I genuinely like watching the relationships unfold between the characters over time. This is a really, really interesting game and one that transcends its genre into wider appeal.
It’s absolutely crazy how close to a “System Shock 3” Prey really is. They’re not even hiding it, there’s blatant references to it. To me, I got the “System Shock 3” I’ve wanted since I was a kid and whatever Warren Spector is fumbling around with doesn’t even interest me any more. I’m good. I’m happy!
Opus Magnum - got it in a humble bundle and it had been sitting around for awhile. I had seen this game get really good reviews some time ago, and came recommended as a solid puzzle game, but never got around to actually buying/playing it. My patience paid off, it's a fantastic puzzle game!
I also enjoy that one - it's one of the puzzle games I keep installed because it's also really easy to just go back to later on; the gameplay is intuitive, and the puzzles are fun, but if you get drawn away for a bit, that's not really a problem. I filed it similarly to Evergarden or Quell - games that don't require constant engagement that you can put down and pick up really quickly.
Since release nearly 2 weeks ago I've played 143 hours of Microsoft Flight Sim. So there's that.
What do you think of it so far? Do you have any previous experience flying or with other flight sims?
I have 0 previous experience and am just using an Xbox controller. So far I really enjoy it. I've been doing a round the world trip in a TBM 930.
I wish so bad I had a way to play it. I used to play X back in ~2010 but haven't played since. Every aspect of it looks amazing.
I finished (quite literally, 10 minutes ago over my lunch break) the campaign for Titanfall 2! Took me juuuuust under 6 hours to complete the whole thing on hard. I really enjoyed it, this is the first campaign that I've played in a while that made me forget how long I had been playing for. I stopped playing last night after dying one too many times and was surprised it was 11:30 already! The way the mechanics work, almost make your character feel like a superhero in a world of regular people (minus all the other superheros lol) Another fact that I didn't know until I got near the ending is that the world of Titanfall 2 is the same universe as Apex Legends (which I've also been playing frequently ;)
Other than that, I've finally increased my Solo's ranking in Rocket League from Platinum 1 division 2 allllll the way to Diamond 1 division 1, which means I can say that I'm a FULL Diamond player now. D2 in both Doubles and Standard. Now it's time to aim for Champ 1 :D
Is there anything specific you did you get to diamond? I've been stuck at platinum 3 for a year.
Are we talking about a specific mode? Or all ranks in general?
For Solo's I hadn't played in quite some time, so I did feel that my solo rank didn't actually represent my current skill level. I made it a personal goal of mine to get to Diamond. In the week (or two) it took me to get to Diamond, I ONLY played solo's. For me, if I'm trying to complete a goal I have to really immerse myself in it. The deal was that I wouldn't play duos or standard until I hit D1. I'll tell you, it was very rough at first. I don't really have the best mechanics or car control, I was used to having at least one teammate on cleanup if I made a mistake. Solo's fixes that problem for you quickly, but harshly lolol
In terms of general advice I have a couple things.
Don't rage-quit. You're robbing yourself of learning some humility, and a great learning experience if you leave at 2-0 let alone 10-0. If you're getting your ass whupped stop trying to win and start trying to learn. Experiment with things that might work. Ask your opponent how they do things. Can't get any worse, right? Also, if you rage quit, then you're losing that slim chance that you can pull off a comeback. They don't happen often, but HOOOOO BOY when they do......... best feeling in the world. Especially if the opponent is a salty asshole about it :D
Similar to above, you also have to play through the frustrating times. Sometimes shit just doesn't feel right, ya know? You can't hit the shots you normally can, you keep #feelsbackflip'ing, miss and easy save and your teammate starts bm'ing...... it happens to everyone. If you leave, you don't learn from the feeling, and you don't learn how to push through the hard times. Mental/Emotional resilience is an important skill to have in a life-context, not only online video games.
Practice mode. all. the. time. Warm up with 10 minutes of practice mode. Cool down with 10 minutes of practice mode. Do as many training maps as you can (if you're on PC, that's a huge leg up). Do training maps but add your own spin. "This time, I can only score from a flip reset", "Now I have to do it while freestyling", etc. The more time you spend in training mode or simply smacking the ball around the field the more familiar you are with the physics and mechanics of the car and ball in game. That translates to better reads, easier flicks, faster shots, and controlled dribbling.
If you want, I should have some time to help out as well. I have a salvageable mic, so if you pm your Rocket ID we can get into a private match to talk things out too.
This confirms my thoughts. My mechanics are severly lacking because I don't practice. I can't break gold in singles even though Im a solid platinum 3 in doubles and standard. I can't convince myself to do it because it feels too much like work for a game. When I'm not thinking about the fact that I probably won't really ever rank up, I have a blast playing.
I've been playing Crusader Kings 2 a lot recently, and pre-ordered CK3
Anyone else excited that its coming out tomorrow?
Even though it doesn't really matter, since both of us have already preordered, IGN's TJ Hafer released
hisher CK3 review and gave it a 10/10. Normally that wouldn't mean much given IGN's history of handing out 10s, but in this case it's super encouraging since TJ is a huge fan of CK2 and really understands the mechanics of it. And the fact thatheshe had apparently played 100 hours in CK3 already before releasing the review is also pretty insane! :PVideo and article for those interested:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y72_v1FRrMw
https://www.ign.com/articles/crusader-kings-3-review
Yes! I have been desperately anticipating the release for over a week now! I have just been biding my time until tomorrow by watching some sponsored pre-release CK3 videos on YouTube (e.g. quill18, ManyATrueNerd, etc) and playing Legends of Runeterra.
SO excited.
I'm so on the fence. I love CK2 but everything Paradox have released (flavour wise) so far about the game implies they have leant heavily into the more "meme-able" aspects of the game. The recent sponsored videos confirmed many of my worries.
I'm hoping so hard that i'm wrong though.
The thing that won me over is a subtle thing: Stress. The idea that your character (you) can know the best thing to do and still have trouble always being good makes each character play so much more like the character. I had gotten to the point with CK2 that I knew all the optimal choices to make, so unless I specifically worked to roleplay my character they all blended together, and that was never fun. It meant doing exactly the same thing over and over for 400 years. (Talk about a good argument against immortality.)
But now your character's personality has a little more weight. Like, you know it's the right thing to do, to spend the money to help the peasants, but you're Greedy. Are you really going to give up that money and stress out about it, or are you going to do the thing that makes you happy? And that level of tension between my desires and those of my current character look like they'll provide really interesting decisions.
CK3 looks really good from what I've seen/read, I played a lot of CK2. But I don't think my laptop is gonna be able to run it very well unfortunately.
Borderlands 3. Bit late to the party but there you go. I like it. It's silly and while the gun situation is getting a bit over the top now (I swear I spend as much time in menus sorting out what to keep as I do shooting the things) it's a well put together game which is fun to play. The best thing about it, and the entire reason I'm playing it, is the online co-op play. There's very few Playstation games with online co-op and I have a friend who loves to play co-op (as do I) in the rare times we both have a few spare hours to play. Prior to this we were playing Far Cry 5 which was really really boring.
Also I have a shotgun which shoots actual freakin' suns.
I have that same shotgun, it's incredible!
In my experience, toward the later game I barely do any weapon sorting out anymore. My loadout is good enough, and I just don't have the will to sort through so many guns, and keep maybe 1 of 100 or so
I've been mostly playing void bastards (thanks @kfwyre). I have really been enjoying this game, the art style is great, the voice acting funny and the game play pushes me into a style I don't normally play often. I have beaten the main campaign and am just getting started with the challenges.
The game was billed to me as a roguelike, personally I don't think that really fits. Yeah there is permadeath, but the items you upgrade through are kept, and most of your progress deeper into the system is kept, the only thing you lose is ammo and the 3 character traits you get per character. Starting a challenge resets the upgrades like you would expect in a new game++ scenario. The game felt like a traditional first person shooter in a procedural set of levels. That's not a bad thing, just something I was surprised at.
The gameplay itself is a real treat. There are a lot of different systems at play and I found myself using all of them depending on my loadout and the level. Some levels were dark with extremely powerful enemies that Inspire stealth game play. Other levels force you into a mad run and gun style or tricking enemies into areas that you can lock them up in. Then there's the occasional level where there's a lot of loot and enemies and you get to spend a huge amount of Ammo absolutely destroying everything around you.
Ammo is really scarse and most of the time there's not much to gain killing enemies (that sometimes respawn), you can also escape a level at any time. This really adds to the feeling that you boarding a ship, not conquering the ship. I've had many fun runs where I give up trying to defend myself and just make a mad dash for the exit. My only minor gripe with the game is that the zapper is a little op and the poison gun a little too underpowered but overall it's a great game.
I recently grabbed City of Brass, which I feel actually is a proper 3D FPS-ish (well, sword and whip) rogue-like.
Can't say much about it yet, as I just started, but so far those skelletons in the medina are whooping my arse.
Control (2019)
I built myself a new computer over the summer, and I decided this would be the game to stress-test my build. And damn -- that ray-tracing is gorgeous. But otherwise I found the game lacking in several critical regards.
While the ray-tracing impressed me, the lack of HDR did not. This aesthetic relies on contrasting light and darkness, but without HDR, areas felt too dark and too bright, often oscillating between the two extremes so quickly as to induce nausea. More generally, while I admit they nailed the aesthetic -- the drab, brutalist environment befits the Kafkaesque bureaucracy of the FCB -- I found the environments repetitive and dull. Although that point could be dismissed as a matter of opinion, the larger issue was how this affected gameplay: with so many places looking so similar, navigation became confusing.
And I think this speaks to a larger issue with wayfinding in the game. I found quest instructions directionless. This wasn't always a problem (modern games tend to provide so much guidance as to remove agency), but on occasion it definitely was; being asked to "eradicate the mold hosts" (an unquantified amount) "around parapsychology" (an unspecific location) was obnoxious. And when I was later asked to destroy "the mold" in the Coolant Plants, despite the entirety of the upper level being covered in mold but only some of it being destructible, I was annoyed even more.
And ultimately, I wondered why I even bothered with the side quests. There were upgrades worth getting -- the best "weapon" in the game, Throw, should be upgraded -- but most upgrades felt uninspired, merely increasing a stat rather than notably changing gameplay; and those abilities that did introduce new abilities were typically so situational as to be useless (eg, ground slam). Similarly, other than the Eternal Flame (google for spoilers), weapon mods were just buffs, and most could be discarded immediately (or more likely later, when your inventory filled up and you were forced to decide which of your mostly useless weapon mods should be trashed). And again, the difference between a common (lowest tier) weapon mod and an Infinite (highest tier) weapon mod only ever amounted to a stat buff.
But I could excuse all these faults. After all, remove the RPG elements, and you'd still be left with an open-world third-person shooter with fairly tight controls, albeit one gated by necessary ability upgrades in Health, Energy, and Throw. However, what I couldn't forgive was the story, or more accurately, its presentation. Most of this game's lore is hidden in collectibles, ubiquitously scattered throughout the Bureau. But who wants to interrupt every 10 minutes of gameplay to read a memo about sand? I found most documents amusing, but reading them became tedious, causing me to collect but ignore most. Besides documents, the world and story are built through optional dialogue with the eccentric characters of the Old House, but that's tedious in its own way. Finally there are cutscenes but relatively few.
Frankly I just don't understand what the developers were thinking. When I encounter a tape player, what am I supposed to do? Stand around for two minutes to listen to someone talk about how strange the Old House is? It's not that I don't care -- in fact, I care a great deal! I love House of Leafs, which the Old House undoubtedly alludes to -- it's just that I don't understand why it's presented so poorly. In other games, the recording would start playing, and then it would continue to play even after leaving the object's immediate vicinity. Why doesn't that happen in this game? Given the bizarre, paradoxical nature of the Old House, surely this feature of convenience could be explained by other lore.
When I finished the base game, I started the Foundation DLC. At some point, though, I wondered why I was still playing. Was it for the gameplay? No, it had begun to wear on me. Was it for the story? I doubted that, considering I would've been unable to summarize it despite having just finished it. At that point, I realized the game severed me solely as a benchmark for how far technology has come. And in that respect, it was successful; but it had also served its purpose, so I stopped playing.
I started on Disco Elysium which I had very high hopes for. I honestly haven't found it as engaging as some other people seem to have found it; there are a few things that left a sour taste in my mouth. For example, I spent a bit of time looking at all the skills, created a custom character, started a new game, and then immediately died and that was a bit of a gotcha that I didn't enjoy. After I read a bit about it, it turned out that a lot of people love that it's possible to immediately kill yourself. That wasn't for me though.
That said, I think that there's a lot of good about this game so far - it's deep, and there are a lot of different ways to build your character, and I like the idea of skill checks to do things. It's got good pacing, good writing, and cool graphics. I like that it's not action oriented - I could get my 70 year old mom to play this game without issue. The art direction is superlatively good, and I think I'm on the cusp of quite liking this... if I can get past the things that leave a bad taste in my mouth.
LOL. I killed myself immediately the first time too, although since all it took was loading the save to continue with the same character I had spent a bunch of time creating, it didn't bother me at all. Are you against "save scumming" or were you playing on Ironman so you couldn't do that, or is it just the fact that you did die immediately that left the sour taste in your mouth?
I wasn't playing Ironman - I might have been able to figure out an autosave. But I had not saved the game yet when I died, so it felt like I'd just lost everything. I honestly just Alt-F4ed out of there and played something else. When I went back to it a couple of days later, I didn't even think about trying to get the autosave, I just recreated a new character, and immediately saved when the creation was done.
I don't want to give the impression that I think that this makes the game bad though - lots of people love the sudden death aspect of this game. It's just not really for me. I think part of it is that I don't particularly enjoy "save scumming", though ironically I don't like that term, because I don't think there's anything scummy about preserving a game so that bad things don't happen to your character that you're invested in. I would prefer not to do any save scumming, and now I find myself doing it multiple times; there's a point relatively early where there is an important skill check around nausea, and I ended up just saving right before the check, loading and trying to pass, and then waiting until I was successful, because I didn't see an immediate alternative. I'm not sure what the alternative was to the nausea related check; I'd already done several things to get my shit together and pass the check, but it wasn't happening, so I just ended up cheesing that part of the story. When that's the only alternative, then I think that the check itself is no longer relevant.
That said, I probably could have just not passed this particular skill check and dealt with not being able to pass; I'm not sure about if this was strictly necessary to progress the story. It felt like it was necessary though.
Unless you are playing on Ironman, there should have been an autosave before that point (IIRC I didn't manually save beforehand but there was one for me), so you likely would have been able to resume too had you tried. Although, TBH, I F5 like a mofo out of habit from playing so many CRPGs, so it's possible there wasn't.
And as for save scumming, one of the reasons I love the game so much is that, unlike pretty much every other CRPG out there, it's actually pretty pointless to do it in Disco Elysium (unless you just want to see what the opposite roll leads to), since at no point (other than the very few times they result in death) does losing rolls actually prevent you from progressing, story-wise. Alternative paths will almost always open up to you when you lose rolls that cut off a progression path, some of the game endings even depend on you losing certain ones, and a lot of the time you can just come back later to try a roll when you have better stats or gear if you really want to make sure you pass it. Sometimes losing a roll even results in a better outcome and opens up more options for you than winning it! And losing also provides a ton of unique dialogue and dialogue trees all throughout the game as well, which made my multiple playthroughs a joy.
So you really shouldn't be afraid to lose rolls, IMO.
Here's the specific thing that I'm talking about - I'm sure it wasn't game stopping, but it felt arbitrary to me.
Spoilers for early Disco Elysium game
There's a point near the beginning where you have to examine the corpse, but it makes your character vomit to get close. Kim tells you to get some ammonia, which I did, but then things are worse and you vomit more. Then Kim tells you to get your shit together, and you can equip a thought to help you get your shit together, which is supposed to help you actually get your shit together so you can examine the body, which I did... and then I failed at actually examining the body again.
This didn't sit well with me - I'd already done not one, but two little side quests to try to just actually look at the main point of the game, and I couldn't do it, and there were no cues in the dialogue for what to actually do at that point that was different. It was just... you can't do this. So I saved and tried again, and did that four or five times until I passed the check and could examine the body.
I realize that there were probably other things that I could have done, and I could have gone off and done side quests until I had a skill point to spend, and then put the skill point into whatever it was that would give me a bonus to that check, and then try the check again... or there would be some other way to go forward, but I wasn't really guided towards that by the game.
Now it's not that I want to be spoonfed how to progress in a story, but thus far Disco Elysium seems to have this juxtaposition of either spoonfeeding you next steps, or telling you actually nothing about how to progress. After looking a couple of things up online, I saw a few people who had the same experience with the same part, and other people saying, "But it's realistic that you might not be able to examine a body without throwing up" and that's true but I don't think that realism is worthwhile in this case. And after further looking, it is possible to progress the story in other ways (which I stopped looking up because I may replay this at some point) but the information that I had at hand indicated that this had to get solved and as I said, I'd already completed two side quests to try to do it.
All that said, it was really just a minor annoyance; it hasn't stopped me from actually playing.
I think that this is objectively a very cool game, but it's just not resonating with me as much as it seems to for other people.
Happened to me too, and I was incredibly pissed off. Like you, I hadn't saved at that point, so had to go through the whole shebang again.
All in all I liked the game, but a few things did annoy me too
Greedfall - I was slowly picking this back up after putting it down for Death Stranding but I need a bit more time to get back into it again. I need an easier transition from "great playing game" to "okay playing game".
Control - I wanted to go back and play the DLC now that it's been released but it's been so long since I played this that I've completely forgotten how. Seemingly simple encounters in the Foundation are completely wrecking me.
Middle-Earth: Shadow of War - I put this down a couple years ago because I got tired of it. But it's been so long that it's sort of fun again. I remember the fairly repetitive gameplay, but this game is about semi-organic moments. So here's one.
I killed a few Uruk grunts that were higher level than me because I couldn't recruit them. They were faceless enemies to me, at least now because it's been so long since I played that I've long forgotten any previous grudges. After I picked a fight that went bad, I ran off to recharge. While passing through a narrow valley, another Uruk grunt appeared in front of me. It was one of the Uruk I controlled, but he was betraying me. It turns out I killed his blood brother and I didn't see this coming because I didn't pay enough attention to my intel. And then a different Uruk appears behind me in an ambush. His name is Thrak Brain Damaged and he screamed wordlessly at me when most Uruk taunt me as a greeting. Thrak had flaming weapons and the two of them killed me, with Thrak dealing the killing blow.
Okay fine. Thrak gets a level up and I respawn. I go on and conquer that territory without encountering either of them again. I move on to the next territory and start a story mission. Mid mission, I run into these two again. Betrayer Uruk is still talking shit and Thrak is still screaming at me. This time, I'm not half-dead. This time I kill the betrayer (whose name I still don't recall) but I spare Thrak and thrall him because I've leveled up enough to do it. I'm going to make Thrak Brain Damaged the new overlord of this territory once I conquer it, provided he doesn't betray me.
Started playing Spiritfarer, which has been a wonderfully calm experience. Hard to describe the point of the game really without sounding buckwild, but its basically an emotionally intelligent game about death. Well, that's the hook at least.
You play as a young girl tasked with ferrying souls to the afterlife, but like its actually a life sim kind of game. You bring aboard spirits to a ship that you design for them to live in, and you cook for them, craft for them, talk to them, hug them and quest for them until they are ready to move on, then you say goodbye. The writing is excellent and really helps you bond with the characters before you have to let go.
The animation and art is just wonderful, too.
Finished Commandos: Behind The Enemy Lines.
As I have mentioned before, I was re-playing this game I've played tons of times but never got to finish, and I finally reached the end and finished the end mission! What a great game, I think the difficulty balance is just right, the length of the game is also perfect, it doesn't feel frustrating or too hard at all but it always manages to be challenging enough. Also it's such a great game to watch gameplays of, what I did was finish a mission then I watched a Spanish youtuber who played the entire saga play said mission and see what approach he took, what mistakes he made and how he fixed them; so I sort of had twice the fun.
Started Deus Ex: Human Revolution.
I played a bit of this game some years ago but never went too far, so far I've been playing for some hours, trying to explore a bit and finish every secondary mission they give me; however I must say that this game is HARD; I wasn't considering playing stealthy but I sorta had to resort to that because getting into a firefight will get you killed real fast. I'm currently at the military complex you reach after taking down the antenna and I'm really not having fun because I'm getting myself constantly killed in one room. I miss being in the city and having more open scenarios and options.
I really love the aesthetic of the game (I'm a big fan of the 1st game but let's be honest, it's dated in terms of graphics) and the story, at least so far. I also really enjoy that every action seems to have some consequence at least if it's just a small line of dialogue making a reference to something you made in the last mission.
By the way there's an option in the Director's Cut to enable Developer Commentary and I tried that for a while and was super interesting to listen to all the design decisions and little anecdotes from the dev team, but I felt like if I had to play with said commentaries it would take me ages to get through the game, because they are long.
Started GTA: San Andreas.
Honestly I just installed San Andreas because I got slightly nostalgic and I wanted to just roam around the map visiting older places; I haven't played San Andreas in a long time and I though that would be something nice to do.
However I did a few missions and got hooked, I've never got too far into the game (in terms of the main missions); I used to just download a 100% savegame and roam the map; and this time I'm attempting to finish the game skipping most of the side content (at least until the end).
So far it's been a lot of fun! I'm mostly enjoying the driving missions and listening to music while driving to different parts of the map; what a great soundtrack it has! I used to think Vice City had the greatest soundtrack but I think San Andreas might be even better.
If I had to mention one negative think is that I didn't get the joystick to work with the game, using the mouse is great for aiming but I'd rather drive with the joystick.
Not a change, but an update: Wind Waker has become the game that's dominating my gaming sessions.
When I first played WW, I played part way through the beginning three pearls quest, and abandoned it for the better part of a year, then had to get back on track. Basically, I never got to experience the game as a single experience. I also depended on strategy guides to complete the game. Since I don't remember anything about the specifics of this game, I get to re-experience it as a much smarter adult, with no previous knowledge about the game, which is pretty amazing.
This playthrough is radically different than I expected, but also extremely familiar, AFAIK being built from the same engine as the N64 games (which also have tight controls). I'm planning to play through in a short period of time to enjoy the game as a single experience. It is radically different from how I remember, and plays better than I expected it to. There are a few moments where it feels like the devs had more confidence in their engine than they have any right to, leading to some frustration. For example: I had two moments where I got stuck because I'd solved the problem, but not as precisely as the game wants you to. I checked a walkthrough, and had to make a very minor correction I wouldn't have thought to do, and got through it. However, I'm like 10 hours in, at least, and only had two of these moments. I found an issue that bugged me, but was at least consistent with OoT where you can't do a roll-jump off of floating ice blocks, but that was easily compensated for.
I have been playing mostly Watch Dogs 2 lately, but that's on hold right now. I won't be getting much gaming time during the next couple weeks, so I will continue this once I get a hold of y RTX 3080 (assuming I can get one within a reasonable time frame and they won't be sold out for ages).
Soo, here's what I actually played.
Factorio: I have been playing this for a long time, but haven't done an actual play through since 0.14. I started a new game when 0.15 and 0.17 released, but lost interest around the midgame. (Oil always annoys me, messes up my base and I don't like dealing with it). So, on to another go!
Skyworld: It feels a bit like Swords & Soldiers VR. Fun mix between turn-based and real time strategy. I just barely started it. It it pretty fun so far, however the step between finishing the first campaign mission (the tutorial) and the second one is too big imho. Also, there is an infuriating bug in the game where the figner trackign is wonky and won't let go of objects, despite opening my hands.
Synth Riders: A VR rhythm game. It's good, and has a few nice things Beat Saber doesn't, but it's still not as good as Beat Saber imho. It could be, because I'm still a beginner and a lot of my fun in BS comes from going all in and full on dancing along. But, because there are no direction arrows in SR it feels kinda off to do so there. I ighly enjoy the, well, riding feel of it, cruising along the song instead of having the notes fly towards me.
Cosmic Trip: Another VR title, more RTS. It looked like it has potential, but I had absolutely no clue what was going on and how to actually play the game after their tutorial. So I immediately lost interest. Will have to give it another chance though.
Minecraft: Doesn't need much introduction I guess. I used to play a lot, roughly 2013-2015, but barely touched it lately. For the fun of it I slapped a server for our local network on my (essentially unused) Pi 4 and zoned out a bit
I’m playing God of War (2018). I love how “gamey” it is, much faster paced and responsive than those new “cinematic” games tend to be. The Zelda-esque “open world light” gameplay works, I even like the puzzles! The BOY isn’t annoying at all, which surprises me. The Midgard setting also feels rather fresh. Loving my time with this and maybe this is my new top PlayStation exclusive, it strikes a great balance.
More than a week ago I finished the playthrough of Nier: Automata that I had been watching for about a month, but since then I've been mulling over my reaction to it. I'm left with... a tepid mixture of disappointment and regret. I enjoyed everything from route C forward - the gameplay difficulty finally picked up and the set pieces provided the kind of challenge that looked fun - but it made routes A and B seem even more tedious in comparison. After I saw the final ending I was more or less satisfied with how it wrapped up the plot, but the feeling that I had all throughout the game, of not seeing what was the damned point to the entire thing, remained.
I then looked up an analysis video and found one that neatly tied the themes of the game together. Now, I feel like I understand what the game was going for, and I guess it all makes sense in retrospect. I had noticed the various plot points were all pointing towards the question of 'What is humanity?', but I think I was too distracted with trying to figure out the origins of the machines, androids, and world in general to piece together the underlying messages. On top of that, everything 2B and 9S said was contradicting all the developments we were seeing with the machines, and I didn't know who to believe. As a result, I was always looking for the other shoe to drop that would tie everything together... and it never did.
Minor spoilers here
I also feel like there's little justification for 9S supposedly feeling this immense sense of loss for losing a newly-met comrade. Yeah, I get that he was supposedly going crazy, but come on. The fourth-wall breaking moment in one of the later hacking sequences, that "You're thinking about fucking 2B right now, aren't you?" line, also didn't land with me at all. I thought up to that point that androids didn't have any sort of sex drive... and *I* certainly wasn't lusting after her. A couple aspects of the game like those just felt way too anime for my taste. On the other hand, the streamer whose playthrough I was watching is an uber-fan of the franchise (and Yoko Taro in general) and explained pretty well why the various details and callbacks were interesting, like Devola and Popola, the Emil easter egg in the desert, etc. That was nice to experience, even by proxy.I think the critical thing, as I mentioned a few weeks back, is that I came into this with absolutely no prior knowledge of the series, or even of the game itself. I hadn't even ever seen a trailer before I started watching; all I knew was the game was highly rated. Now, while I think I can totally understand why it would have impacted players so much if they were already familiar with the universe, I feel like I'd have focused in on the really important bits if I had some kind of context beforehand, and that leaves me disappointed. I don't know if my misgivings have more to do with the fragmented storytelling or the fact that I watched the game rather than played it myself, but either way I feel like I missed out.